The Real Harbin Part 2: It Takes a Village

Laura and I love two things above all else when we travel: food and getting off the beaten path. Naturally, if there is an opportunity to combine both we are all over it. Laura started working on the hotel manager the day we arrived and finally convinced him to take off work early and drive us to his family’s village for a huge dinner. It took about 40 minutes to get there (his brother drove) and our hosts were an older couple who were friends of the family. It was a semi-rural village; most people made a living through agriculture and local businesses. Needless to say, it was also freezing!!!

As usual in situations like this, the family cooked us a feast. In this case it involved slaughtering one of their geese and supplementing the main course with nine additional dishes. There was enough food to feed at least 20 people. Without going through every dish, I’ll just say I liked everything except the congealed fat squares. (Laura said it was just like gravy, but I thought it was more like when you drain the fat from meet and let it congeal with some cartilage and who knows what else inside, and then cut it into jello-like squares. Kinda gross – I preferred the pigs blood.) The fish on the other hand was exceptional, and the sweet and sour fried pork actually tasted similar to that in the states.

It is custom to put food on other people’s plates before eating yourself. Since we were the guests of honor, we were each presented with the best part of the goose – its foot. I learned that eating this properly involved putting the whole foot in your mouth and chewing off the “meat.” The leftover bones are then put on the table next to your plate.

Laura again was once again an expert translator. This time, I also managed to participate by helping teach the family some English phrases (cheers, bottoms-up) while amusing them with my newly learned Chinese phrases. At one point, I asked them to teach me a song and they sang a Chinese version of the “are you sleeping, are you sleeping…” song. I guess the Chinese aren’t huge singers though, when I tried to get everyone to do it in a round at the dinner table they just laughed at me and refilled my beer glass. (Better this than the home made wine I might add.)

We finally left – overly stuffed which probably wasn’t the best way to ride the night train. This morning we are back in Beijing and it is a balmy 30 degrees. I put on my jeans and thought for a minute I might have lost weight the last three days before I realized they just felt looser because I didn’t have ski socks and thermals on underneath. We also retired the Russian hats… sad  Now off to see some of the city before celebrating New Years later this evening.